Tom Coronel absorbed race-long pressure from Yvan Muller to pick up his first win of the season in the second of today's World Touring Car Championship races at Suzuka.

The ROAL Motorsport BMW driver took advantage of a poor start by polesitter Darryl O'Young to take the lead going into the first corner, and quickly found himself at the head of a queue comprised of the three lead works Chevrolets and Robert Dahlgren's Polestar Volvo - the latter having been hastily patched back together after crashing in race one.

Muller led the pursuing pack, and while he was never more than a couple of feet from the rear of Coronel's car, he never had a real opportunity to pass. Rob Huff was similarly secure in third, but there was a bit more action in the battle for fourth between race one winner Alain Menu and Dahlgren.

Menu had taken fourth from the Swede early on but Dahlgren fought back, the scrap culminating in a brave attempt to run side-by-side with Menu through the Esses. Both managed to stay on the track, although Dahlgren was unable to make the move stick.

O'Young paid a heavy price for his slow getaway when he was swallowed up by the first couple of rows in the run down to the first corner and then tagged by Gabriele Tarquini, putting him into the Turn 1 gravel and prompting a brief spell behind the safety car.

O'Young managed to get going again, albeit well out of contention, while Tarquini was dealt a drive-through for his part in the accident.

Race one podium finisher Michel Nykjaer was best of the independent drivers in sixth.

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